The Archmage: Chapter Nine

Might…

Might.

Might! 

I wouldn’t accept dying on a might. I couldn’t accept dying a failure. I wouldn’t die so close to being able to accomplish my goals. 

Not only wouldn’t, couldn’t. 

I couldn’t push away the faerie side, though, so what could I do? 

If the fusion arch-star was about binding yourself to the magic of another realm through your connections, could I do the opposite?

I drove a wedge between my two auras, not trying to throw my support or power behind one side or the other, instead trying to split it in half, rip them in two separate, new pieces. 

It felt like I was tearing my soul in half, tearing my entire identity in two. 

And then… 

Everything that made me who I was shattered. 

I had to piece myself back together, bit by bit. 

Not one person, not two people. 

Not a faerie, not a human. 

Neither. 

But both. 

There were two paths now, and I had to build my power with one at its core, and the other layered on top. 

I brought my human power in first, setting that as my base, the foundation upon which a second aura was built. This was almost entirely faerie, though it was stained with traces, the shards of my humanity I hadn’t quite perfectly managed to extract and add into my base. 

I felt myself shifting, even as the second layer took root. My lifeline twitched and flooded with strange energy, but not faerie energy. My body trembled and spasmed with the effort of putting myself back together. The wound in my gut closed up from the sheer life running through me. 

My eyes snapped open, and I rose to my feet. I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen. 

When I reached within myself to light up my aura, I felt two sources of power, not one. One was familiar, the vibrant green of my human magic. It bloomed out, and the power I’d forced into myself to prolong my survival had expanded it, strengthened it. I was more of a mage than I had been before. 

Then I tapped into the other source of power. Silvery-green light emerged around me, changed slightly from the pattern that I’d matched to Oracle. It was change magic, not autumn, but there were streaks of mortality in it too. It wasn’t pure faerie magic. 

But it was close. 

All of the staining, all of the corruption, all of the faerie power, all was condensed within this secondary aura. I didn’t know if I could cast like a fae with it.But even if I couldn’t do that, I could certainly infuse it into spells, into my rituals. My own wellspring of change magic, allowing me to optimize my castings. 

There was no sense in not testing it, though. I flexed my hand out and tried to cast a veil over myself. I knew how to draw veils with change magic quite well – it had been one of the spells I’d relied on most when I’d fought the king. 

My magic flexed and spun, and a few of the runes and lines shaped. The light around me wavered slightly, but it wasn’t a true casting. It too was crude, and not just from my lack of shaping skills. This aura had too much human in it, it was like a sorcerer trying to cast a witch’s spells. It only kind of worked, and only when they were aligned. 

But the faint blurring effect I was able to manage would have to be good enough to get me out of here, and I started sprinting for the gate again. 

Even as I sprinted, I couldn’t help but be happy with my fifth and final arch-star. 

For a year now, I’d been working on the blending of two realms of magic, faerie and human, with some consumer and other types scattered throughout. The whole time, I’d been reliant on samples of power that I’d bartered from the fae, or existing equipment. 

Now, though? I was able to create with it to my heart’s content. I was even able to call upon crude and weak change magic. I might never be up to the level of a faerie or sorcerer, but it was something, at the very least. Better than anyone but an extremely talented druid could manage, and even then, they’d need a fusion arch-star. I think – I wasn’t an expert on druids.

A few guards were flying overhead, and I tilted my crude veil over my head to block out the light. I mentally strained and added a few human runes, which did help the spell operate a little better, but it was little more than a blurring effect. 

And then the wards exploded. 

My third eye was practically blinded as all of their power was discharged at once, and then my actual eye was nearly blinded as a massive blast of flame that sapped the air from the air around it launched at the guards.

Well, that was enough of a distraction. I ran to the wall and clambered up it, wishing I’d spent more time working out like Osheen had told me to, even as overhead I could see someone lit with bright fire streaking into battle against the guards.

Except it wasn’t Osheen. For a horrifying moment, I thought that Franklin Roark had managed to return, that Draven somehow had kept him alive and preserved, but no. It was Osheen, but it wasn’t. He had fused with Bridgette, and his wings of fire were now more physical than ever before. His hands were tipped in claws, and the spells he was casting blended together elemental and human magic, much as I blended human and faerie. 

Before I even had time to process that Osheen had risen to the rank of an Archmage, I fell onto the other side of the wall, and practically on top of Tara. she let out a yelp and stepped backwards, drawing one of my knives from my belt – which she wore – before relaxing. 

“Evan?!” she asked.

“Hi,” I said, smiling. 

“You’re alive?!” she asked. 

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. She reached onto the belt and snapped off the spell bottle containing the spell Draven had provided us, and I shook my head. 

“No need for that. I’m human now. Or… Mostly human? I think I might be closer to an elf or aster, biologically speaking, since my lifeline was infused with some faerie magic…” 

“What happened?” Tara hissed, and I shook my head, summoning Oracle, and directing him to grab Osheen. Tara then shook her own head and tapped my bracer, using it to send a whispering wind. 

A moment later, Osheen shot over to us and landed like a meteor. Before I had an instant to take it in, he swept me up into a tight hug. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

“No time,” Tara said, even as the guards emerged, floating overhead on discs of force. Osheen nodded, and Tara shoved my cloak on me. I activated its familiar assassin’s cloak and flight, even as Osheen grabbed Tara and we lifted off into the air. The guards fired at Osheen, but my cloak had recharged to full in the time I’d been stuck in the cell, so I reflected their own attacks back at them with little effort. 

Skilled mages they may be, each one with one or two arch-stars, but they weren’t skilled enough to stop us. Within moments we were over the city, then diving into the streets, and into the abandoned warehouse where Draven’s portal array was. 

It was already active, with Draven standing on the other side. As we came into view, he raised a single, well manicured eyebrow, then we shot through the portal. He stepped in as well, then snapped it shut. 

“Well, it seems you’ve had an eventful week as well, Evan,” Draven said. “Since we have a bit of a walk back to Yesgol, why don’t you illuminate us on what happened?” 

“First, are you okay?” Osheen asked seriously. “Are you a faerie? If we need to go back and grab a random mage…” 

“No,” I said. “I’m fine, and even if I wasn’t, I don’t want to stoop to the level of targeting random people.” 

“I’m most curious about how, exactly, you’re fine,” Draven said mildly. “You now have two arch-stars that nobody I’ve met has. The first one came from Medb, that’s fair enough. This one…” 

I thought about that for a moment. Draven could use the information against me. But if I was going to be working on making information public, then it would be hypocritical of me to want to keep my own arch-star hidden. I’d reveal it to everyone, in due time. 

For now, though… 

I lit my green aura, then I lit my new, silver aura. Draven’s already raised eyebrow raised further. 

“I split my aura in half,” I said. “One side is human. One side is faerie.”

“Curious,” he said, removing a bottle of iron filings from his pocket. He blew them onto me, and it tickled, but in the way dust or filings were meant to, not in the way that suggested I was a faerie. 

Osheen and Tara both shouted at him, but I cut them off by speaking.

“I’m not a faerie,” I said. “I’m human, at my core. The faerie magic is just… Layered on top.” 

“Well,” Draven said. “This is interesting indeed. I can remember the last time a new arch-star was discovered, but it was close to two hundred years ago!”

“I don’t think it was,” I said, shaking my head. “The continent is wide and strange. Just because seventeen – more like twenty, to be honest – are known in Paerús doesn’t mean there aren’t more. The world is wide enough for twice as many. More.” 

“Perhaps you’re right,” Draven said contemplatively. “Regardless, congratulations are in order. As is testing. Can you utilize faerie magic?”

I flexed my hand and a ring of faerie runes appeared in the air, a simple change spell that would change the orientation of a breeze for an instant. Weak, barely more than the faerie version of a glyph. 

In truth, after expending so much energy throwing together a veil, even that was draining, but I wasn’t going to tell Draven that. The more power that he thought I had, the better. 

“What about you all?” I asked. “I heard an attack while I was trapped in there.” 

“That was actually when I broke through to archmage,” Osheen said. “Tara was working on ways to bring down the ward system permanently, but I couldn’t wait, so I launched an attack on my own.” 

“Against both of our better judgment,” Tara said softly. 

“I knew it was foolish, but I had to try,” Osheen said obstinately. “What if you’d taken too long to crack their wards?”

“And I’m guessing the fight didn’t go well?” I asked. 

“Far from it,” he said. “I wound up caught in a fight against Edward, his wife, and their guards. Edward did his beam attack, and I weathered that, but then his wife did some sort of bullet spell that cracked right through my force armor. I was losing blood quick – I think it was part of the bullet spell – and it just… Clicked. Bridgette fused with me, and since we were one, her phoenix magic was able to repair the wound.” 

“That must have given them quite the shock,” I said. 

“No, actually,” Draven said, sounding a bit grumpy. “I called in a few favors with illusion spirits. Nobody noticed, they just thought he had a life rune bond. Those illusions have also made sure all three of you were seen around Hallowbrooke.” 

I glanced at Draven, then Tara spoke up quietly. 

“I threatened to lay a curse over his house if he didn’t help us at least a little,” she said.

“I like my house,” Draven said, almost sounding like a sulky child.

“The problem was,” Osheen continued. “There were just too many of them, and Tara wasn’t able to help me, so we waited until the wife was out, and… Well, that’s when we ran into you.” 

I looked over my motley collection of friends and allies, and pulled Osheen and Tara both into a tight hug. 

“Thank you,” I said.